Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the public announcement was made by the government that there was going to be an implementation of the Parkinson report recommendations on child support there was nobody happier than I—and I know many of my parliamentary colleagues—to hear that announcement. There was nobody happier than I because I am well aware—I am probably the most informed member in this parliament, including the ministers responsible for portfolio—of the issues centred around child support. We had great lead-up comments about how we were going to address the culture deeply embedded in the Child Support Agency, we were going to make it fairer and more equitable to both of the parents in the interests of the child, we were going to ensure that the training that was going to go into the department was going to be first class and was going to be centred around people being able to professionally deal with the very emotive issues on the phones and we were going to ensure that the discussions that occurred between Child Support Agency staff and people ringing were recorded so that we had ample evidence of the professional way, hopefully, that the Child Support Agency would react to the changes.

But in the last three or four days we have heard that the culture that has regularly been referred to as endemic in the Child Support Agency—and that is the anti-father bias—has been reintroduced. The enforcement side of it has taken precedent over all of the good things that should happen within the department to make it fairer and more equitable to children. When I say the enforcement side of it, I refer to a public announcement by the Minister for Human Services, Joe Hockey, that we are going to implement a program in which 120 people are going run around willy-nilly, spying on and recording on video those who are referred to as ‘those male payers’ who are alleged not to have lived up to their obligations as the fathers of children.

None of us would condone any system which allowed a father not to live up to his moral and proper obligations to look after a child that he has sired, but nothing has been said about what we are going to do about women who, for many years, have been falsely claiming child support from a male who was not the father of the child that he was purported to have sired. In those instances it is not always only one child but sometimes two, three and four children. No effort has been made by the Child Support Agency to bring those women who have lied in their sworn statements to the Child Support Agency to justice for what they have done in creating undue financial and mental stress to male payers.

I could go on talking about the issue, but what I am concerned about this evening is the control we are going to have over these 120 people. Are they people who are well trained and aware of the sensitivity of the job they are about to undertake? Who is to make sure that the people they are investigating, in many instances who are having their human rights abused, are in fact guilty of what the minister talks about in his press statements? Are we going to fit these people out with grey uniforms and jackboots, which would be appropriate for the actions that the minister says they are going to take out in the public arena? I have grave reservations and concerns about this initiative by the minister. I would have thought that there were other areas of the Child Support Agency that needed to be cleaned up with a great deal of vigour than putting 120 people out into the community specifically to watch ‘suspect parents’ and to gather video data on their lifestyles. That is not what this government is all about and what this government purports to be all about. It is an undemocratic process. Quite frankly, I think the minister has bowed to the pressure of people within the CSA. (Time expired)

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 9.30 pm, the debate is interrupted.